1991 – Mid-point
It was little more than two years between the moment Bolo co-opted Black Star and the day he took his family back to Panama. But for some reason, it felt like decades to me- an era I’ve never been able to shake off completely. I think it was the intensity of the work I was doing, the training I received. Learning the most efficient way to fast track the supply chain running from Panama to Port Newark to Far Rockaway, White Plains, Connecticut- wherever we got the call- and all the way points in between. All the paperwork to scrub, all the palms to grease, all the profits to launder. And the headquarters of all this activity, the way station between pick-up and delivery, was always my little storefront on Nostrand Avenue.
It was good of Bolo- kind of him, even, to have Teó Henriques set the scene for what was really going on. To let me know, from the very beginning, what my true role was to be. I admit, I walked up to that mansion in Clinton Hill knowing I was being groomed for something, but I left it realizing I’d already been granted my freedom. Instead of an endless slog with El Cacique’s foot on my neck, I’d just have to endure a limited amount of time learning how to adjust my methods to the boss’s tastes and figure out a way to keep that same energy once he’d left New York behind. And the business friendship I developed with Teó was an added bonus.
By the summer of 1991, I’d been fully integrated into the system. My primary responsibility at that juncture was managing all paperwork at our entry point- Port Newark in New Jersey. The routine was always the same- we’d have an unmarked cube truck making the pick-up. I’d follow behind in my secondhand Volvo station wagon. If there was any problem with the paperwork I could roll in and fix it on the spot, if it looked safe enough to do so. Or I’d drive back later that night when things had quieted down. I was also in charge of maintaining Bolo’s inventory, which was kept tucked away in shipping barrels stacked up in the PanStar backroom.
The first thing Bolo had ordered me to do, even before I got my sign painter bredren, Kingsley, to come over and redo the front window, was to hire a legitimate commercial security company and get PanStar reinforced to Fort Knox level. Like they used to say back then, when advertising dances at the Biltmore Ballroom or the Starlite, tight, tight security for your assurity. The rickety, old doors were upgraded to ones that were steel reinforced and alarm triggered. My hardware store backroom knob-lock was replaced by an electronic keypad screwed into the wall.
“And you and I are the only people to have the code!” Bolo admonished me. For years, Bolo and I were the only people who had the code to the backroom door, until I gave it to Pierre, right after he moved into my old studio, upstairs.
Once I had security sorted, I turned my attention to the physical space. I needed some sort of headquarters or command center from which to manage logistics. It needed to have a work area and a dedicated cool out zone. I needed some furniture, a refrigerator and some tunes.
When I invited Bolo to inspect the newly installed security systems and saw that he was pleased with the results, I lobbied for a few thousand dollars to go towards my home improvement fund.
He laughed and said, “Thank God you mentioned it to me, because I've been waiting for you to notice that you're running a shithole.” Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of hundreds and counted out five thousand dollars.
“Anything you don’t use on decorating, put towards a nice barbecue for the backyard and a few cases of good rum.”
I spent the next few weeks going from one end of Brooklyn to the other, purchasing furniture and hiring handymen. A friend of mine who owned a small banquet hall in East Flatbush was looking to sell a barely used six-seater couch- it was a nice butterscotch colored suede, almost brand new, so I snapped it up. I got a top-of-the-line television and a sturdy minifridge from P.C. Richard and stocked the fridge with as many bottles of Heineken as I could cram in there. I asked Prentiss to recommend a good sound system man who could build me a decent stereo set-up and mount strong ceiling speakers in both the front of the shop and the back room. I hired a local iron worker to craft me an indestructible oil drum grill for the backyard. I got a picnic table and benches from a garden supply store out by Bensonhurst. I dropped some money on a brand-new hardwood coffee table from a store on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. And finally, I went over to the used furniture stores on Atlantic Avenue and found a magnificent mahogany desk. I moved my rum bottles from the battered file cabinet tucked them into one of the desk’s many deep drawers and dragged the file cabinet to the sidewalk on trash day.
Once everything was finished, I lit some herbs and smoked the place out, from back to front. Then I cracked open a big bottle of Wray & Nephew and poured rum across every doorway and in each corner of that room as I spoke to Elleguá and Ogún.
Afterwards, I turned on the stereo for the first time and popped in a CD, to bless the space with music.
Mighty Diamonds.
Natty dread will never run away. No no no.
